MAN IN THE NEWS: COLIN LUTHER POWELL

MAN IN THE NEWS: COLIN LUTHER POWELL; A General Who Is Right for His Time

By ANDREW ROSENTHAL, Special to The New York Times

Published: August 10, 1989

Correction Appended

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9—
In choosing Gen. Colin L. Powell to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, President Bush would be turning to what many consider to be the very model of a modern Army general for a time when diplomatic finesse and foreign policy expertise may be as important as combat experience. As President Ronald

Reagan's deputy national security adviser and then as national security adviser, General Powell was a crucial player in the summit meetings and negotiations that have brought the United States and the Soviet Union closer than the two nations have been since World War II.

Politically, such a choice was seen as adroit; not only is General Powell the first black to be the Chairman, but he is also widely admired on Capitol Hill and within the Bush Administration.

He has close ties to Brent Scowcroft, the current national security adviser, and he was strongly supported by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, then a member of the House Republican leadership, when the general was appointed national security adviser in November 1987. Praise From Thatcher Adviser

General Powell has also had extensive contacts with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies and has earned high praise from Charles Powell, the principal foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain. Mr. Powell once called the general the most impressive American miltary man he had ever dealt with.

Colin Luther Powell was born on April 5, 1937, in the South Bronx, the son of Jamaican immigrants, and has spent more than 31 years in Army uniform.

He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the infantry after completing Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Ga., in June 1958. He also completed two tours of combat duty in Vietnam, serving in 1962 and 1963 as an adviser to South Vietnamese units and in 1968 and 1969 as executive officer of an infantry battalion and as a division operations officer.

He was wounded in combat and holds the Purple Heart. He also holds the Defense Distinguished Service Medal with oak leaf cluster, the military's highest noncombat decoration. Reputation as an Intellectual

Like Adm. William J. Crowe, whom he would succeed as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Powell is considered an intellectual. He earned a bachelor's degree in geology from the City University of New York and a master's in business administration from George Washington University.

After a series of military assignments, including command of an infantry attalion in South Korea and a brigade in the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky., General Powell, then a major, came to the attention of Washington officials in 1972, when he became a White House fellow.

In July 1977 he began the first of a series of posts in the office of the Secretary of Defense, working his way up to military assistant to Caspar W. Weinberger, then Secretary of Defense, in 1983. After three years in that job, General Powell returned to his first love, soldiering, when he commandered the Army's Fifth Corps in Western Europe.

Although it was his political experience as much as anything else that qualifies him for the Chairman's job, General Powell strongly resisted joining the White House staff when Frank C. Carlucci became national security adviser in January 1987. A Personal Plea From Reagan

At first the general pleaded with Mr. Carlucci to find someone else, arguing that he wanted to stay in the Fifth Corps. ''I gave him every reason I could think of,'' General Powell recalled. But Mr. Reagan called the reluctant general a few days later, and he took the post.

General Powell was promoted to national security adviser when Mr. Carlucci replaced Mr. Weinberger as Secretary of Defense. Like Mr. Carlucci, General Powell won high marks for his adroit handling of a job that had been badly discredited in the Iran-contra scandals.

''He never, never usurps the authority of the President,'' Mr. Carlucci later said of General Powell. ''But his position is always so reasoned that by and large he carries the day.''

Before he left office Mr. Reagan nominated General Powell to his current four-star rank and assigned him to lead the Forces Command, the Army's largest, overseeing all troops in the continental United States with responsibility for the defense of the American mainland. Legendary Self-Control

Although he is a cordial, good-humored man, General Powell's icy self-control is legendary. He and his wife of 26 years, Alma, were devastated when their son Michael, an Army officer stationed in West Germany, was seriously injured in a jeep accident in 1987. But General Powell did not slacken his pace at the White House.

The general has always tried to play down his status as a prominent black American, bristling at questions on the subject. But he addressed the issue with great power once, in an essay published by The Washington Times in January.

''My family lived in Birmingham that terrible summer of 1963,'' he wrote. ''My wife and infant son were living with her parents. I wasn't there. I was a young infantry captain in Vietnam.

''When I returned that Christmas, I was hit full force with what had happened in my absence,'' he continued. ''I was stunned, disheartened and angry. While I had been fighting in Vietnam alongside brave soldiers trying to preserve their freedom, in my own land a long-simmering conflict had turned into an open fight in our streets and cities - a fight that had to be won.''

Correction: August 11, 1989, Friday, Late Edition - Final A Man in the News article yesterday about Gen. Colin L. Powell misstated the source of his Army commission. General Powell was already commissioned as a second lieutenant, through the Reserve Officer Training Corps program at City College in New York, when he went to Fort Benning, Ga. There he attended officer courses at the United States Army Infantry School.